Monday, February 16, 2009

John Donaldson is an idiot.

Calling it a “violation of the charter’s defence of free speech,” an atheist group is planning a Supreme Court challenge of OC Transpo’s decision to disallow a controversial ad from appearing on its buses.

The ad, which says “There’s Probably No God. Now Stop Worrying and Enjoy Your Life,” was rejected based on a clause in OC Transpo’s advertising policy that states, “Religious advertising which promotes a specific ethic, point of view or action that might be offensive to users of the transit system is not permitted,” said John Donaldson, the city’s program manager of transit, marketing and customer service.

"We had a look at the policy and our response was we should not be running that ad,” he said.

And while one might simply shake their head at Donaldson's absolutely stunning retarditude, we can be grateful that he's clearly defined what is and is not acceptable ... like, say, ads that promote a fetus-fetishist, "pro-life" agenda since those ads would be similarly religious in nature and would promote "a specific ethic, point of view or action that might be offensive to users of the transit system."

The left-wing strategy is now obvious -- start watching for OC Transpo ads promoting the anti-choice philosophy and let John Donaldson know that you're offended. Deeply.

And if anyone has Mr. Donaldson's contact info, I'd be happy to post it here. I'm sure he very much wants to hear your opinion. He said so himself.

I'M AMUSED by this little snippet:

"Just because of the advanced publicity on this campaign, we already know that people will be offended,” Donaldson said.

So what's happening here is not that those ads are offending people; no, Mr. Donaldson has taken it upon himself to predict what the response will be and act pre-emptively; you know, just in case. One wonders why he didn't allow the ads, then monitor the response, since he openly admits he has the authority to yank those ads if things get out of hand:

“We receive complaints about advertising material of all kinds of different subjects,” Donaldson said. “The same thing applies — if people are offended, and let us know about it, then there’s a provision in the contract to ...remove it.”

But what Donaldson has done here is rather clever. See, if those ads had been accepted and had started to run, and they really and truly offended some folks, then those folks would have had to protest, and it would have been hugely entertaining to hear the thin-skinned whining from, say, some of Ottawa's religious leaders, who are perpetually yapping on about freedom of religious expression and shit like that. But if those leaders had started to protest the bus ads, well, the delightful hypocrisy would have been on spectacular and glorious display.

No problem, though, as Mr. Donaldson rides to the rescue by not allowing the campaign to even get started, saving all those religious leaders the embarrassment of having to go public and explain how their concept of religious freedom doesn't extend to, you know, atheists.

It must be nice for Ottawa's religious poohbahs to have an obedient poodle like Donaldson making their lives easier. Why humiliate yourself in public when a quiet phone call will do just as well? Good boy, John ... you have served your Christian masters well. Have a biscuit.